Tambourines to Glory (15 page)

“Why, the way she hits them drums, the congregation loves her.”

“That’s just it. I want them to love me—and you—without Birdie’s competition. Besides, she just naturally grates on my nerves.”

Following Essie by a kiss or two in the hall came Marietta and C.J., bounding lightly into the room.

“Mama, we’re going upstairs.”

“You and C.J. both should’ve been up there making music at eight o’clock like the others.” Laura was cross tonight.

“It’s my fault, Aunt Laura,” apologized Marietta. “C.J. came up to Mount Vernon to spend the afternoon with us, and I made a cake that was late getting out of the oven.”

“But it was good—ummm-mmm-m!” said C.J.

“Cooking for him already, and you’re not married yet. Women are fools,” said Laura, looking around for her purse.

“We will be married in the spring, soon’s I graduate from high school. Come on, C.J.” Marietta pulled him and his guitar toward the stairs.

“He’s a nice boy, Laura, and I’m so glad for my child,” said Essie.

“I’m glad you got Marietta in the country. Harlem’s a den o’ sin,” growled Laura, rummaging in her pocketbook.

“But don’t you reckon our church has made it a little better? Still, I hear some peoples is taking this Temple for a numbers center. Them white gangsters …”

“Marty and them ‘gangsters,’ as you call ’em, squared the violations on this church. It’s still a firetrap, you know.”

“But we’re gradually getting it repaired. And some of the money we’re spending like water could …”

“If you’re talking about my new coat, Essie, you know I always
said I was going to have a real
fine
fur some day. You keep on wearing your old rags if you want to, with that same old Lenox Avenue knife of yours in that ragged pocket. What are you protecting?”

Essie laughed, “Nothing. You sure got yourself a pretty beaded purse. But why you dumping everything out on the table?”

“I’m looking for something,” said Laura, as she turned the contents of her pocketbook inside out. “I thought I had some of the apple of evil in here—money. You know, I always try to carry a few greenbacks with me. But you, you put all your money except what you live on, back into this church, like a fool. At least, I finally got you to buy yourself a new white velvet robe for the pulpit—up there looking like a scrubwoman, and you the chief saint! Just being robed in goodness, you know, is not enough for the type of folks we attract. They like color, glitter, something to look at along with these fine rhythms we’re putting down. I told you that Ed Sullivan mentioned our Tambourine Chorus in his column, didn’t I? This church is headed for big money, girl. We’re doing all right.”

“I ain’t for so much publicity,” said Essie.

Laura was carefully putting comb, mirror, lipstick, powder, kerchiefs, and odds and ends, one by one, back in her purse as the frown on her face deepened.

“Go on, Essie, get upstairs there and make your presence known, before we start an argument. Anyhow, I want to be the
last
to enter tonight. Sister Mattie, come here!”

Essie got to her knees in one corner and prayed briefly before she panted up the narrow stairs, and the Mistress of the Robes came in to see what Laura wanted.

“Sister Mattie, go up and tell Brother Buddy to come down here a minute
—now!
Suppose you set in with the chorus and sing a little. I want to speak to him
private.”

RASCAL OF GOD

A
lone, Laura looked at herself in the mirror, carefully inspecting the flow of her scarlet robe before she flung the golden stole about her neck. Upstairs she heard the congregation shouting and clapping and she knew that Essie must have walked onto the rostrum. Suddenly there was a bitter taste in Laura’s mouth and a swimming in her head.

I wish Essie would get holy enough or lazy enough or something to quit my Temple, thought Laura, but she won’t. The stronger Essie gets in faith, the louder that woman sings and the stouter she sits on the rostrum—and folks just love Essie for
just sitting
. All they have to do is see her up there, and they feel happy. But look at the money I would make without her—and I wouldn’t have to split it with no woman, just Buddy. Sometimes, though, I
believe Buddy would cheat even me—in fact, I know it. Buddy and Essie! One’s
too
honest, and the other one ain’t honest enough. Jesus, I got two crosses to bear, and both of ’em’s galling my back.

Laura loosened the golden strip of velvet about her neck and softened its folds as a frame for her face. Then she heard his footsteps.

“What wantest thou, Sister Laura?” Buddy mocked, head down, eyes teasing as he came in.

Laura wheeled accusingly, and there were no preliminaries. “Did you take that hundred-dollar bill out of my purse?”

“I
sure
did,” smiled Buddy.

“The dough you’re getting from this church is not enough?”

“It
sure
ain’t,” grinned Buddy.

“You’re not satisfied?”

“No,” smiled Buddy.

It was the sight of his big nonchalant teasing lips with the white teeth between them that infuriated Laura. “So you’re planning to spend some more of my dough on that bitch, heh?”

“Watch your language, sister! What bitch?”

“You think I don’t know? I mean that cheap little model you’ve been riding around in that convertible I gave you.”

“She’s no cheap little model—she can sing. She’s got a contract at the Vanguard, moving on up to the Blue Angel. Next thing you know she’ll be in the Copa. Marty’s underwriting her.”

“Somebody’ll be
undertaking
her if she don’t stay out of that car I bought you. She’ll be singing in the Devil’s Graveyard with an everlasting contract.”

“Ha-ha! Says you!”

“Says I, baby. Brazen as she is with you, it’s a wonder it ain’t all
written up in
Jet
. It will be next week, I expect.
Lorna
—why, even her name sounds like my name!”

“She don’t look like you, baby.”

“No?”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’m a young man, Laura. You’re old enough to be my mama.”

Laura stood for a moment in silence. Upstairs the choir was singing:

“Buddy, you don’t have to say things to hurt me,” Laura said. “I just wondered who took my money, that’s all.”

“You knew who took your money,” Buddy said. “I can have it, can’t I?”

“Yes, Buddy, I guess you can have anything I got,” she answered quietly. “But now my pocketbook’s empty after you made your raid—so I might as well leave it downstairs here. I believe I’ll stash it in Essie’s old coat pocket.”

Laura went toward the hook on the wall where Essie had hung her heavy black coat, and into Essie’s pocket she put the beaded purse. For a moment her hand lingered in the pocket there. As she turned to Buddy, the long sleeves of her velvet robe covered both her hands like drooping wings.

“Maybe you can tell me,” Laura said, “why it looks like, no matter what a woman does, a man can’t never seem to act right? You try to treat a man nice, and looks like he has to turn around and drop the boom on you. Ain’t a woman suppose to be nothing but dirt under a man’s feet?”

“Just about all, in my opinion,” said Buddy. “You feel so good under my feet.”

“You don’t try to hide
your
ways, do you?”

“Why try? You can’t hide nothing from God, can you? Nor the police. So why worry? The police I can pay off—God you
pray
off.”

“And me?” asked Laura.

Suddenly Buddy leaned savagely across the table. “You? I’ll slap the hell out of you, if you fool with me! A woman like you is supposed to put out some dough—if you want to keep a guy like me around. I don’t mean peanuts. Believe me, baby, now that you’ve got me,
you’re gonna keep me
. I ain’t gonna give you up. Besides, I’m a partner in this deal—from the Holy Water and the Lucky Texts to the tambourines. You told me, I’m a saint also. What did I go to all that trouble of getting converted for? Since I been functioning in this church, look how many more young girl members you got—just on account of me and my presence. Two beat-up old women saints like you and Essie maybe can pull in those wrecks out of the gutter like Crow-For-Day and Birdie Lee—but me, I bring in the young girls. There’s something about me, Laura, that the chicks go for.” He looked at her a long time, then smiled. “You admit I’m a m-a-n—man, don’t you, kid?”

Playful again, Buddy from behind put an arm around Laura’s neck, pulled her head backward toward him, tall, and kissed her from above, “Hummm-mm-m!”

Laura suddenly thrust her tongue between his teeth. “There
is
… something about you, Buddy—doggone it!”

“I know, baby—so the women tell me. There’s something about you, too, Laura, now that you’re close. …”

Suddenly Laura cried, “You sweet rascal of God!”

She turned and, as she found herself in his arms, she let his lips find hers. Swiftly the wide sleeves of her scarlet robe swept upward like velvet wings and suddenly her right hand descended between his shoulder blades—and something in that hand went deeper into Buddy’s body than the thrust of her tongue in his warm moist mouth.

Hurrying through the open door at that moment came Sister Birdie Lee who, at the sight of the lovers, paused politely on the threshold before crossing the room. “I’m sorry, you-all, but my kidneys is bad.”

Rushing, Birdie cut across the basement toward the sign that said
TOILET
as Laura stepped back. Suddenly, before Birdie got where she was going, Buddy fell straight forward at Laura’s feet and the startled Birdie saw him sprawled face downward on the floor with the blade of a gleaming white switchblade knife stuck in his back. The spreading ooze of blood stained his jacket.

“Oh!” said Birdie Lee. “Lemme get to the bathroom.”

Birdie rushed in and closed the door. Laura stood where she was over Buddy’s body, but her eyes followed the woman. “You had better not come out—you hear me, Birdie Lee? Unless you are struck dumb. Speechless! I say, struck dumb!” When Birdie pulled the chain and emerged, Laura repeated, “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, Sister Laura,” the little black woman trembled, “I heard.”

“You’d better be speechless, Birdie! If you so much as open your mouth anywhere to anybody, with my own hands I’ll …”

As the scarlet sleeves fell back from her brown arms, Laura’s fists went up into the air and their fingers opened like two frightening claws. The words choked in her throat. When she got her voice back, Laura shooed the petrified Birdie to the door. “Get back upstairs to your drums, you evil hussy! Give me a
big
drum roll when I make my entrance to the pulpit. You hear me—a
big
drum roll!”

Birdie tumbled up the stairs. From the pocket of Essie’s coat Laura took her purse, looked down at Buddy motionless on the floor, then ascended to the altar where the music swirled.

EVERLASTING ARM

Walking in rhythm out from the wings, her scarlet robes swaying, Laura advanced toward the congregation as a thousand hands clapped in time to the music, the tambourines trilled, the drums rolled, and the trumpet gleamed, its notes round and full.

“Thank God!” said Laura. “Thank Him for His son, for the Holy Ghost, for Sister Essie, for the Tambourine Chorus, the Gloriettas, and for this great church here tonight. Also for this Holy Water, precious fluid from the Jordan, imported just for
you. Blessed water to purify your home, one dollar a bottle, friends, just one dollar! While I sing, ushers, pass amongst the people with these bottles. If they run low, there’s more here beside me on the rostrum. While Sister Essie goes into the wings for meditation, pass amongst the people with the water.”